“The McMartin Agency should hire an army of graffiti artists to hit the streets and create ad campaigns that don’t feel like ad campaigns. Consumers will assume they’re looking at the work of a teenager. But when that same tag appears on our client’s corporate Instagram account, or in the background of a TV spot for their product, consumers will subconsciously link it to the image they’ve been walking by every day. It looks like graffiti, feels like graffiti—but what’s really being vandalized are our eyes.”
Mr. Gidding doesn’t say a word. His grin hasn’t slipped a fraction of an inch but his lips somehow look thinner. I forge ahead, determined to show initiative. “I think we’re noticing a trend now, at least on social media, where customers want to interact with the brands—”
He holds out his hand to silence me. “Let me stop you there, Erin.”
My breath hitches. “Sorry?”
“You’ve got the job, I promise. Don’t sweat it. Your father has been such a good friend, it’s the least I can do. Your dad actually asked if we could have a chat, you and me, to see if I might offer any career advice. Just to set you on the right path. I told him I’d be happy to. What’re friends for?”
Well, this is certainly news to me. “Oh?”
He stands and walks around his desk, leaning against the front of it. I have to crane my neck back if I want to meet his eyes, but I can’t quite decide if I want to. “So, for starters, I have to ask—have you put much thought into what your five-year plan might be?”
I don’t know what I’m doing five days from now, let alone five years. Is he for real? Should I have brought my vision board along with my resume? “Well, sir, I haven’t written anything down, specifically, but I have considered—”
His hand finds my shoulder. He has to lean over to reach me, edging off his desk. “That’s why I’m here. I can provide some friendly suggestions on how to get you started.”
I offer a stiff smile. He still hasn’t let go—and for the life of me, I can’t tell if this guy is trying to be paternal or pick me up. He’s friends with my fucking father and he’s pulling this shit on a job interview? Is my radar way off here? Am I just reading him all wrong? How can I hint at my discomfort without deep-sixing this gig?
“Thank you, sir.”
“I always thought DeLillo was being pretty cruel to us advertisers,” he says with a wink, as if to say your secret’s safe with me. “But I never took Underworld personally. As a matter of fact, we ran an ad campaign for Adidas back in ‘97 that deployed graffiti artists, right after the book came out. I actually came up with the idea after reading it.”
Fuck a postmodern duck. I really screwed that one up.
He’s putting me in my place. He wants me to believe he’s mentoring me, but it’s a total power play. And he totally knows if I go crying back to Daddy, I’ll never land this job.
“I see a bright future for you here, Erin. I look at you and I feel like our firm can be your home.” A home? His grip on my shoulder tightens. “I hire people I consider fam—”
My phone vibrates again—Silas calling for the third fucking time. Mr. Gidding finally lets go.
“Sorry.” Jesus, Erin, stop apologizing! I pull my phone out and send Silas straight to voicemail. Why is Silas calling me? Is he hurt? Is he in trouble? Cut him off, Erin, cut, cut, cut—
If Mr. Gidding pretended not to notice before, he certainly does now. “Do you need to get that?”
* * *
—
I don’t listen to Silas’s message until I’m out of the building. The rear wall has been bombed with a wheat paste mural. A raven the length of the building stares down at me, as if I’m a worm it’s eyeing to uproot from the earth.
When I was only four I found a dead crow in our backyard. Its wings were frozen open, its clawed feet clasping at the air. I thought it was sleeping on its back. I tried to wake it, tapping at its chest. The crow’s ribcage suddenly gave way, my index finger slipping past its feathers and into the squiggly bits of its body. I could’ve sworn I felt its toothpick ribs tighten, closing around my knuckle, as if it wanted me to stay inside. It felt so cold. Its wet organs thrummed, intestines squirming with life. Not the crow’s…but something else. Just beneath the sheath of oily black feathers, this dead bird’s body housed a writhing mass of maggots.
When I showed my mother, she shooed me back inside. I kept my index finger extended all day—the one I’d inserted into the bird—even after Mom insisted I wash my hands under scalding hot water for well over five minutes. She recoiled when I reached out to her, her expression full of horror. I had touched a dead thing.
Good girls don’t discuss such topics publicly, dear, she said whenever I brought the crow up during polite conversation. Death is a personal matter. It’s better kept private.
We don’t talk about death in our family. It never touches us.
But I touched it.
I lean against the mural and bring the phone up to my ear. There are a few seconds of ambient sound, then Silas’s labored breathing. I can’t tell if he even knows he’s called me. When he finally speaks, the words drift in and out, as if he can’t hold his own phone to his mouth.
“There are things I can’t tell you…This isn’t going to make sense yet…I want you to find me, Erin. I know you can…I know you—”
I delete the message before listening to the rest.
memorial
They discovered Silas’s body below the overpass where Interstates 95 and 64 intersect in a cloverleaf knot in downtown Richmond.
The floodwall for the James River is directly below, creating a space that isn’t used for much beyond skaters tagging the overpass’s underbelly. Slashes of spray paint form crosses and lacy RIPS. Skulls resembling toadstools sprout from the asphalt.
And a new tag, left just for yours truly, which Tobias would tell me about later: SILAS AND ERIN ARE HERE
I try to picture how the police found him. What his body looked like: the robin’s-egg cast to his face, the whites of his eyes dried to a milky gray.
The service is tasteful, I have to imagine: family and close friends only, homilies and hymns, a framed photograph of Silas from healthier days perched on top of his closed casket.
I don’t go.
I can’t leave my apartment. I want to pay my respects, say goodbye. I’ve even pulled out an outfit to wear, laying my job interview dress on my bed. I stare at it for I don’t know how long. I know I’m supposed to slip it on but something within me keeps stalling.
The service is starting. All I have to do is move. One foot in front of the other.
When is my body going to wake up? When will I start going through the motions of living again? I know Silas won’t answer his phone, not ever again, but I call him anyway. I listen to his greeting—Surprise, you caught me—over and over—You know what to do.
I just want to hear his voice, even if it’s prerecorded. Those words are enough to conjure him up. For a fleeting second, I trick myself into believing he’s actually on the other end of the line. Surprise, you caught me, you know what to do, surprise, you caught me…
I don’t know what to do.
The tears come without warning, burning my cheeks. My stomach seizes and I collapse across my bed, curling into myself and wailing until my throat is raw. I cut Silas off. I cut him out, didn’t I? Just when I was making a clean break, just when I was about to move on with my life. This is all my fault. Everyone at the service will know I did this to him. If I had just been there for Silas, if I’d given him one more day, just one more, he’d still be alive.
Instead, I ignored his calls and he overdosed alone.